Chapter 70

Translator: Amber.es | Editor: Cookie🍪 | Proofreader: Bubbles

T/N: Sorry folks! I was overseas for a while, hence the slow update

“So you think Xuezhang is thinking too much?”

“That’s not true.” Wen Mingyi looked down at the bed sheet. “I just feel that I’ve wronged him too much. I shouldn’t have been like that back then. He must have been very upset.”

“Let the things of that year be over. It’s useless for you to regret it, so it’s better to look forward and get along with Xuezhang in the future.”

“I know,” Wen Mingyi, melancholic, replied. “I just thought that if we were to separate in the end, I’m afraid he would be upset.”

“Are you only afraid that he’ll be sad?” Li Yuanqing temporarily parked the car on the side of the road, planning to concentrate on the call. “How about yourself? Are you sad too?”

“Of course I’ll be. But is this the time to consider my own mood? I only care about whether he is upset or not.”

Li Yuanqing inexplicably had a growing headache. He thought about it and said to Wen Mingyi, “Ming Ming, modern social communication now is very developed, especially if you two still live next door. As long as you don’t move away and he doesn’t too, even if you two are married, you can see each other every day after having your own families. Taking a step back, even if you both move and your new home is not next to each other, then you can still visit each other. As long as you don’t treat him the same as during your high school time, avoid seeing each other, or quarreling the moment you two meet, there won’t be much difference — separation or not, in fact.”

“It’s like Yunfei going to university in City B. Yun Chang- jie is here, but they will still contact each other by phone, and they will also meet after Yunfei comes back for winter and summer vacations. This does not affect their feelings. Are they not having a good brother-sister relationship?”

“But…” Wen Mingyi opened his mouth, trying to say something, but nothing came out.

Li Yuanqing waited for his response, but when he saw that he had nothing to say, he described, “Whether family members or friends, they will stay with you for the rest of your life, but they may not be your closest person. Xuezhang treats you well and does many things for you. Though you are very dependent on him, you can’t live together all the time. There’ll be a time when you have to leave. But leaving is not forever. If you think like this, you might feel better.”

“And about him, if he is very resistant to this matter and wants to do something to ease his mood at the time, you can also let him do it. You…”

“But I don’t want him to be so alienated from me,” Wen Mingyi interrupted. “We finally reconciled, I don’t want him and I to be distant because of things that haven’t happened yet. Anyway, we are not married yet. We are the most important people to each other, so why must we deliberately alienate ourselves for the future?”

Listening to what he said, Li Yuanqing laughed helplessly. “Of course you wouldn’t care, but didn’t you just say it? Xuezhang already has a psychological shadow on this matter. If you don’t let him take preventive measures now, when the day of the final separation comes and he cannot accept it, what should you do? What should he do? Shouldn’t you consider his emotions?”

Wen Mingyi was taken aback.

Li Yuanqing sternly advised, “You can’t do this. It’s too selfish, and too unfair to him.”

Wen Mingyi kept silent.

He held the phone, unsure what to say at the moment.

Li Yuanqing sighed and comforted him, “In fact, your relationship is very close. Even if you distance yourself a little, it will not affect anything and will not change much between you two.”

However, Wen Mingyi was still unwilling. He looked at his bedsheets and did not speak.

Li Yuanqing couldn’t penetrate through. “You don’t need to change now, just take your time. Or you can get into a relationship and divide your time with one another.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to fall in love before my ge does. I will only date after he does.”

“Then why not supervise a little for Xuezhang? He’s putting too much energy on you, cares about you so much that there is no time to look at other people’s charming personality.”

Wen Mingyi didn’t want to either.

Li Yuanqing asked him, “Why are you silent?”

“Because I don’t want to,” Wen Mingyi said bluntly. “I don’t want him to fall in love now. I just reconciled with him not long ago. I don’t want others to intervene between us at this time.”

“You don’t want this, you don’t agree with this. Then what do you want?” Li Yuanqing asked him. “Do you want to stay with Xuezhang without being separated forever?”

Wen Mingyi stopped talking again.

Li Yuanqing felt that he was particularly twitchy tonight. “Speak. What’s with the sudden silence?”

“I want to sleep.” Wen Mingyi changed the subject.

“Sleep? Now? Why are you so awkward tonight! What do you want to do, you have to make it clear!”

Li Yuanqing seriously felt that he was living in such a situation: the emperor was not in a hurry but the eunuch beneath were. This emotionally slow Wen Mingyi could still think about sleeping? He was anxious to death for him, okay!

“I also want to know what I want!” Wen Mingyi answered, depressed. “It’s because I don’t know, that’s why I don’t know what to say or how to say things. I don’t want to be separated from my ge , I don’t want to date. I don’t want anyone to intervene between us, but it’s impossible! Even blood brothers separate one day, let alone us.”

“Of course I know that right now, if I keep a distance from him, it will not be painful to be separated in the future, but I can’t do it! He is the person I depend on most, the person I trust the most. I’m already accustomed to living with him. I don’t want to be separated from him.”

“Initially, the person my godmother wanted to match with Song Shuhan was not me at first, but my ge and Song Shuhan. I watched my godmother and mother clean up a room for her, thinking that in the future, I would move out and my ge ’s room would have another person staying inside. I’m annoyed and depressed, but what can I do about this kind of thing? I still have to accept it!”

“No matter how good the relationship between Yunchang- jie and Yunfei is, during Yunfei growing up, he had parents, other relatives in the family, you, and other friends. But not for me. Since a long time ago, my parents, family, friends, and relatives were all Si Junduo’s. I have no one else, I only have him!”

Wen Mingyi was incredibly agitated. “I don’t want to be selfish nor unfair to him, but what should I do if we separate? He has never left me behind. Even when I ignored him during my rebellious period, I knew he had been silently paying attention to me. But afterwards, when I move out and another moves in, and he starts to care about the other, then what should I do?”

“It is impossible for you and Yunfei to be by my side all the time, and my parents are not by my side either. If he is not there anymore, then I will be the only one left!”

Wen Mingyi was instantly upset. “So I don’t want him to fall in love. But that’s not fair to him, hence I don’t plan on falling in love too. Can’t that be possible? He will spend a long time with another in the future. Half a lifetime is so long. By that time, he would naturally grow distant from me, so why distance from me now? What I want to cherish is only this period of time before our families are formed.”

Li Yuanqing listened quietly, vaguely hearing the cries mixed within his words. “Are you crying?”

“No,” Wen Mingyi retorted. “I just feel uncomfortable.”

Li Yuanqing sighed, not knowing what to say for a while.

Wen Mingyi didn’t know either.

He had never said this to anyone, even if it was to Si Junduo. He seemed to have always been very fearless, afraid of nothing, placing nothing in his eyes.

Between him and Si Junduo, he had the upper hand, there was no restrictions on him. During his rebellious period, he casted Si Junduo aside. After his rebellious period ended, he returned to Si Junduo, seemingly showing that Si Junduo was not that important, that he was not his only choice.

But only Wen Mingyi knew — the reason he was so confident about everything he had was because he knew that Si Junduo had been paying attention to him.

He knew that even if he left and he moved out, Si Junduo would care for him. He knew that Si Junduo would not leave him behind. Hence, he dared to be willful.

However, the moment he realised that he may no longer be Si Junduo’s only one, that his gaze may shift to another person, all his sense of confidence had dissipated, replaced with panic and uncertainty.

Wen Mingyi recalled the time he stood in front of this house, during university, three years after leaving, ringing the doorbell once more.

At that time, University X had just started school, and the weather in September was still very hot. He and Zhang Heng finished class and bought food to go back to the dormitory. When approaching the bottom of the dormitory, he heard many girls whispering and heard the name of Si Junduo. When he approached, he saw Si Junduo’s car not far from the dormitory building.

Wen Mingyi eyed that car, thinking Si Junduo should be there to see him. After all, this school was Si Junduo’s alma mater and he himself was here studying too.

He thought about a hundred ways to disregard Si Junduo, when he saw another person running out of the dormitory next door. He ran to the front of Si Junduo’s car, then knocked on his car window. Si Junduo opened the co-pilot’s door to let the other person sit in.

Wen Mingyi’s footsteps instantly paused.

He watched Si Junduo’s car move to turn around to get out of campus. But his mind was concentrated on the person who’d just gotten in the car, the person who ran out of the neighboring dormitory. That was a fellow student.

He stood along the road which Si Junduo took to leave the school. Si Junduo seemed to have seen him, or not. He did not stop, passing by directly without hesitation, and driving out of the school gate.

In that instance, Wen Mingyi felt like he’d fallen into an ice cellar.

He didn’t eat all night. Instead, he inquired about the person who got into Si Junduo’s car. That person was Jiang Zimo, a few years older than him, who was also in the journalism department. It was said that he would go to the Si company for an internship.

The Si’s company’s internship recruitment was over long ago! At this time, going into the Si family. The relationship between them was simply clear at a glance!

Wen Mingyi was angry and frustrated. Yet, he couldn’t help being afraid.

He was afraid Si Junduo’s patience for him would reach its limit, hence abandoning him. If he could be kind to his neighbor’s didi , then naturally he can be kind to his alma mater’s xuedi 1 A junior in school. Vs Xuezhang . Especially when this xuedi was much more obedient than him.

Therefore, he kept investigating and being focused on Jiang Zimo. Eyeing Jiang Zimo’s every move, staring at every meeting between him and Si Junduo. He saw Jiang Zimo’s different faces in front of Wen Bo and Si Junduo, seeing him be courteous and speak thoughtful words to Si Junduo.

He asked Li Yuanqing: If someone said these things to me, did these things for me, how would that person feel towards me?

Li Yuanqing didn’t even think about it, immediately replying: Of course, that means they like you. If you can’t even see this, you’re really slow.

Wen Mingyi did not speak. He asked Bian Jinyuan the same question, then emphasized that the other party was a male.

“It’s not that you have never seen homosexuality. If they did this, that means they like you. Whether the other party is a male is the same. However, if you don’t like the other person very much, I don’t recommend you stay with him,” Bian Jinyuan very sincerely admonished. He said, “This is not an easy road to walk. Yunfei and I are together because we like each other very much. But if you don’t like each other very much, only having a good impression of each other, then you can take an easy way out.”

Wen Mingyi thanked him and sat silently in his rented room.

After a long time had passed, he stood up and angrily kicked over the table in front of him. He never thought that one day, there would be a male who would like Si Junduo. Even more incredulous was that Si Junduo would allow that person to stay by his side!

What qualifications did Jiang Zimo have! What qualifications did this fart of a white moonlight have to drag his ge to another route! He was not worthy!

Wen Mingyi returned to the familiar villa area that night. He stood in front of Si Junduo’s house gate and rang the doorbell. He looked at the lighted villa and waited for someone he knew to open the door for him.

As he waited, Si Junduo walked out and was stunned when he saw him. He quickly walked down the steps, crossed the courtyard, and opened the door for him.

Wen Mingyi looked at the man in front of him. After three years, he finally came back again.

He didn’t know what to say; he could only quietly stand there.

Si Junduo also didn’t seem to know what to say. They had had far too many quarrels. Each time, they started with the concern of Si Junduo and ended with Wen Mingyi’s bad words. As a result, Si Junduo sometimes faced him without even knowing what to say, how to say it, what tone and opening remarks should be used to make Wen Mingyi less resistant to him.

So this time, Si Junduo just asked him, “Do you want to come in?”

It was the first time that Wen Mingyi realised that there was indeed a gap between them. From his birth to the present now, he had been in and out of Si Junduo’s home countless times, and every time he was confident and unscrupulous, as if he were going home.

But now, Si Junduo asked him, “Do you want to come in?”

Not “Come in ba “, not “Come back”. But, “Do you want to come in?”

As if he was just a passer-by, and he’d accidentally rang the doorbell. The owner opened the door, not knowing the other party’s intention, so politely asked, “Would you like to come in and talk?”

But he was not a passerby. He was obviously a returning guest.

The author has something to say:

Gong and Shou are not related by blood, neighbor gege , neighbor didi , called gege or didi because of courtesy~

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A junior in school. Vs Xuezhang